Looking back at an excellent event we attended earlier this year...

The first RESAS Science, Evidence and Policy Conference took place at the inspiring venue of Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, and was attended by Mark Brewer, Thomas Cornulier, Anastasia Frantsuzova, Esther Jones, Katharine Preedy and Katherine Whyte from BioSS. This event brought together scientists, researchers and members of the Scottish Government policy teams to strengthen collaborations, and share views on challenges in biodiversity and the climate crisis.

The day started with thought-provoking keynote talks from Simon Fuller (RESAS) and Lorna Dawson (SEFARI), followed by case studies from colleagues and collaborators at EPIC, SEPA, SRUC and the James Hutton Institute. Before lunch, we had a chance to make connections and brainstorm with policymakers during informal round-table activities.

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During the afternoon, we attended breakout sessions and panel discussions on the topics of using science and evidence to address climate change adaptation, issues in biodiversity and emerging policy challenges. BioSS were also able to showcase posters on our work in wastewater Covid-19 variant sequencing analysis (Tyler Chafin), impacts of offshore renewables on the marine environment (Katherine Whyte), and biodiversity modelling for the RESAS research programme (Anastasia Frantsuzova).

You can view the presented posters here:

• "Environmental genomic surveillance: insights and applications from SARS-CoV-2 wastewater analysis" - Tyler Chafin
• "Statistical methods for joint species distribution modelling" - Anastasia Frantsuzova
• "Impacts of offshore renewables on the marine environment" - Katherine Whyte

All of the posters presented at the event are available on the SEFARI website.

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